fusion

From a NY Waterway ad campaign:

Life is full of surprises, like your husband coming home from work and beating you again, but your commute shouldn’t be.

Lots of family; lots of food; lots of alcohol; lots of chatting; lots of appointments; lots of fun; lots of traveling; lots of holiday cheer; lots of love.

Have a merry Christmas this 2008, it sure has been a memorable year.

With Christmas drawing near it means only one thing at work: the holiday dinner. There is a lot of anticipation by most for the grand dinner, escape to a ball-like atmosphere with fancy attire, and expected workmate who drinks a little too much and is remembered by everyone the following year.

This year we didn’t have any of those things.

Times are tough for the majority of companies in the US these days and many are cutting back on all costs. This year my company hosted a potluck dinner by its employees right in the building. The lunch room was packed full to the edges with various dishes brought in by everyone. A small raffle for a few prizes was held and then we were all excused for the day. A few brought in their Xbox and Wii to hook up to the projection screens in the conference room to play Rock Band and other games afterward though I didn’t get a chance to play.

It was a cheap option taken when the executive board and CEO are making millions in bonuses this time of year and they couldn’t be bothered to spend maybe $50 per person for a proper lunch, but there are lots of other companies which are handing out pink slips or folding altogether instead, so I can’t complain too much.

It’s no wonder the world hates the US.

What happens if you take Transylvanian farmers who have never eaten a burger and ask them to compare Whopper versus Big Mac in the world’s purest taste test? Will they prefer the Whopper? These are the Whopper Virgins.

A new ad campaign by Burger King, Whopper Virgins, simulates an anthropological experiment by visiting poor, underdeveloped countries to recruit indigenous people for a “challenge.” They present people who have never had a burger with a platter. On the platter are two burgers, one by Burger King and the other by McDonald’s. The footage features people from Romania, the Hmong tribe of Thailand and the Inuit of Greenland all trying a burger for the first time with a large emphasis on their reaction. The biggest message it sends out is that your existing customers, the ones who actually buy the product already, are so intoxicated on it that they can’t tell the difference between yours and the other competing burger.

The documentary was released worldwide on December 6 and directed by former skateboarding champion Stacy Peralta. It has had mixed reviews as it’s been labeled mainly offensive.

“It’s outrageous,” said Sharon Akabas of the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University. “What’s next? Are we going to start taking guns out to some of these remote places and ask them which one they like better? The ad’s not even acknowledging that there’s even hunger in any of these places.”

“That’s a stupid commercial, because when you’re hungry, anything tastes good,” said Irvin Gatone, 42, of the Bronx.

Jacqueline Renee, 35, of Manhattan, said it’s a good idea. “Not everyone is as fortunate as us to be able to pull up and get a burger,” she said.

The money spent on this idiotic campaign would have been better spent on feeding and taking care of these people instead of exploiting them in this absurd marketing research scam.

In the long line of tower defense games in which there are many variations, my favorite would have to be Vector TD by David Scott. I discovered this Flash game last year and instantly spent countless hours playing it and its two other sequals, Vector TDx and Vector TD 2. The game is similar to other tower defense games in which you must build fighters who will attack waves of the enemy as they wind their way through the paths to the goal. I’ve beaten nearly every level but the gameplay factor in tower defense games keeps me coming back as I try to find new ways of defending the castle.

With so many web sites in business to collect as much of your personal information as possible it would seem plausible that we’ve become used to giving away our personal information at a whim. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace exist to extol and datamine as much personal information as possible from as many different people as possible. It even exists in sites which require that you register before viewing “exclusive” content. This barrier of entry exists in so many places and is set so low most of the time that we consider it normal, shrug it off, hand over the information and continue to what we really wanted in the first place. The acceptance into UNCG, on the other hand, raises this bar so high and aims to extol so much information that it is a rape of your personal information.

In order to be classified as a North Carolina resident a form much be filled out and handed back to the registrar’s office. Universities are businesses like any other really with a single goal: to make money. They institute a policy where anyone who has lived in the state of that university for at least one year is considered a resident of that state and is privy to reduced rates on their tuition. Everyone else must pay the out-of-state fees. The difference between the two classifications can sometimes mean double or more in fees. UNCG’s estimated cost of attendance for the 2008-2009 year for a resident is $4,527. The fees for an out-of-state student is $15,798. That’s nearly a 3.5 times hike in price! So with this kind of incentive to be classified as an in-state student, it’s no wonder they take advantage in collecting information.

The application to be considered an in-state student is so invasive that it’s questionable if it’s really a joke at times. Most of the questions are intended to be answered by the applicant and involve information about their parents but if the applicant is married then their spouse must also answer the questions — even if they are not attending or will ever attend the school. Some of the more interesting question –

8. List the secondary (high or preparatory) schools you attended in sequence

9. List ALL post-secondary schools (universities, colleges, junior colleges, community colleges, etc.) you have attended (including UNCG):

The form requires the name, address and starting and ending full date (month, day and year). If you’re married, you’ll have to also list all of the schools your spouse attended.

The form goes on to ask for the applicant’s father and mother’s information. This includes name, occupation and home address with a starting date. If your parents are divorced you will be required to answer questions about court appointed guardians of the children as well as their home address.

22. List in chronological order to date of this application ALL places you have spent at least seven consecutive days during the past three years. Your response must include your current address, all other places lived, and vacations.

This is one of the more implausible questions. They require the city and state of the place (it assumes that you haven’t visited anywhere outside of the US), the purpose of the visit and, again, the beginning and ending full date of the visit (month, day and year). If you’re married, your spouse will have to also list all of their locations.

22. Name each state or foreign country where you did each of the following during the last 24 months. List each time you did each such act. (If not done in the last 24 months, list where and when such acts were done the last time you did them; if never done at all, write “never.”):

Ignoring the fact that there are two questions marked as question 22, this question takes the cake. Beneath it are ten subquestions which ask for the state and full date (month, day and year) for each. These questions are: a) registered to vote; b) voted; c) called to serve on jury duty; d) acquired or renewed driver license; e) listed personal property for taxation in the county where you live; f) filed state income tax return and whether or not you filed as a resident or nonresident; g) acquired ownership of property for use as your principal dwelling; h) inclusive dates of such property ownership; i) whether the state income was withheld during the current year, the same question for the previous year, and if the total amount withheld was refunded; and j) registered/licensed a motor vehicle.

24. List the addresses at which you own and maintain personal property (clothing, furniture, cars, checking or savings accounts, stocks, bonds, pets, jewelry, appliances, etc.) and give the percentage of value (of such personal property) maintained at each address:

The form requires and address and the percent maintained at that address.

25. List all of your employment for wages in the last 24 months:

Job title, employer, address, starting and ending dates, and number of hours per week are required for each employment. If you’re married you’ll have to list your spouses employment as well.

28. If you (1) now live regularly with, (2) have lived during the immediately preceding 24 months with, or (3) continue to maintain close ties with and periodically live with another person who is a relative by blood, marriage, or court order (legal guardian), or (4) have been claimed within the immediately preceding 24 months as a dependent for taxation purposes by someone other than yourself, answer the following for each such person. (Answer for only one adult person at each address.) If married, complete for spouse; (if separation occurred within last 24 months, complete for spouse; if divorce occurred within last 24 months, complete for ex-spouse).

This question is a two part question. The first part asks for the name, address, relation, previous address, if they’re a veteran and so on. The second part is the same as question 22 was with asking for voting dates and so on.

30. In support of your claim to North Carolina as your bona fide permanent residence you must attach copies of your residentiary acts including, but not limited to: your North Carolina driver license, vehicle registration, voter registration, North Carolina income tax returns, year-to-date cumulative wage earning statements from all jobs held during the current year, listing of personal property taxes, etc;

31. If you are basing your residency upon your spouse’s North Carolina residence, include a copy of your marriage certificate and copies of your spouse’s residentiary acts (listed above);

All sorts of extremely confidential documents are requested in those two questions but what are you to do? If you want to attend the school and would like to avoid the outrageous surcharge tacked on when being classified as an out-of-state student, then you have no choice but to divulge any and all personal information that they require. You can’t refuse to less they deny your acceptance or North Carolina resident status; you can’t falsify any information otherwise you risk being expelled or being denied the diploma that you’ve worked for; you can’t be concerned about seeking permission from the possibly many close people related to you to have their personal information included on your application form.

What is amazing is that all of this information will be consolidated into one form and handed over to one business for their storage. While information such as voting and motor vehicle registration isn’t too hard to come by, they are contained solely within that department — in looking up someone’s voting registration history you can’t find out about their income tax refunds. And of course we’re supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside knowing that UNCG won’t lose our information or leak it somehow, ignoring of course the recent security breach at the Financial Aid office which exposed banking information or the school’s history for such breaches.

Having just gotten into this show midway this season I can’t say whether or not they did a Christmas special last year, but this episode (season 2, episode 11) was just the right amount of Christmas cheer without inducing any vomit. There was also a bigger part by Howard and Raj, Penny and Leonard’s relationship was brought out again, and there was a lot of Sheldon in this episode but without making it Sheldon-centric.

We were able to see some more of Sheldon’s anti-social conformities again as we found out that he despises the act of gift giving. You see, when someone gives you a gift you are then obligated to return the favor and give them a gift of equal value. Penny didn’t know that Sheldon doesn’t do gifts for Christmas and got him something anyway. Sheldon then spends the rest of the episode hunting down the perfect sized basket of bath items. His reaction to her gift at the end is priceless — he even hugged her!

All I need is a healthy ovum and I can grow my own Leonard Nemoy!

You can watch a clip of this episode and all current episodes on Hulu by the way.

I’m a huge fan of Terry Goodkind’s “Sword of Truth” series — I’ve finished all but the last book in the twelve book series in fact. So when I accidentally discovered that the book was being made into a TV series I was a little worried as I’m one of those jerks who adamantly believes that the book is better and simply can’t help himself to point out the flaws when watching the adaptation. I watched the first seven of twenty two this weekend of Legend of the Seeker and I was hugely disappointed, dispite my already low expectations. It borrows a lot from the Xena and Hercules series: bad acting, terrible script and cheesy wardrobe to name just a few. In reading so many of the books I was hoping that some of the awesomeness would spill over in the TV. Unfortunately, non of the awesomeness did as the same mistakes used in Xena were once again used.

The main plot of Richard trying to get to Lord Rahl is the overarching plot of the series so far. Each episode is made up of a small side adventure like saving a village or child, with the last five minutes progressing the overall plot and leading slightly to the next episode. I understand how when a book is made for television certain elements need to be edited but this version has taken the original story and twisted and mangled it nearly beyond recognition losing all of the glamor and charisma found in the book. Random people from different books are inserted into the storyline at random places which are way off. Representations of some of the characters are way off. Important details in which the entire world revolved upon are left out. Any adult concepts found in the book is completely removed including any traces of bood from the fighting scenes, clearly aiming the show at a younger audience.

It often seems like the show was written based of off an oral summary of the books, with the writers not even having picked up the book. The actor playing Richard is just a scrawny boy without any charm or allure. When watching him I couldn’t help but to think that there would be no way I would follow him into battle and beyond. He certainly didn’t seem like the type who could inspire tens of thousands of people.

I know that you have to keep an open mind when viewing book to TV adaptations and many times there is really no point in comparing, but this series doesn’t have any of the elements that make the book so compelling and will most surely not draw anywhere near as large of an audience as the book. This whole thing is my fault, really, for getting the books made into a TV series. Many years ago when I had started reading the books I said aloud that it has all of the elements to make a great movie. Someone must have heard; they obviously didn’t read the books though.

You can watch the series as it airs on Hulu for free.

In one of my more expensive posts yet, a Russian guy this week has patented the wink emoticon. You know the one:

;- )

I guess I just infringed on this patent right there.

In most cases the use of a patented trademark is not cost prohibited. When asked about this he mentioned that “it won’t cost that much — tens of thousands of dollars.” Though he’s aware of how difficult it’s going to be to receive payments. “You’re not likely to find any retards in Russia who’ll pay … for the use of emoticons.”

If you’re thinking to escape it by not putting the nose, he’s way ahead of you. He has already claimed ownership to alternate emoticons such as :- ) or ; ) or : ) since they are similar.

I don’t even know where to start with this lunacy. Clearly this guy is not an entrepreneur at all but is doing this as a cheap stunt to gain publicity for his business. He should be labeled for what is truly is, a fraud. The patent office too has a huge part to blame for this. Besides the fact that patents are over abused and entirely too generic these days, the fact that the emoticon has made it into the public lexicon since the dawn of the computer age should instantly invalidate the patent application.

This post will cost me “tens of thousands of dollars” times five. Any emoticons used in comments to this post will be separately billed to their author : p (that one is still free of charge aparently)

I started the blog in late 2005 as a means for me to document my time in Japan starting the following year. Back then it was a C++ application which I had written from scratch in a lab at a university. Writing it in C++ was an absolute pain as everything had to be done from scratch — and I mean everything: headers, CGI parsing, cookies, HTML, etc. The only thing that I skimped out on was the database abstraction layer, in which, instead, I used libpqxx. (Come on, you didn’t expect me to write a PostgreSQL interface?!)

It was fun maintaining the application but it very soon became a chore to add any new features or even basic ones. So sometime in early 2007 I buckled down and rewrote the blog software in PHP. The rewrite took less time than developing the original C++ version (but not as fun of course) and it became a snap to implement some much needed new features like templates and spam control.

Last month I resurected the blog database, installed WordPress and wrote a few import scripts. My blogging life is easier now and I can leave the development to someone else, since I have no free time for development projects outside of work anyway.